Buying Municipal Bonds In the Primary and Secondary Markets

There are two ways to invest in municipal bonds including the primary market and the secondary market. The primary market is normally only open to high net worth investors with access to top-tier brokers. Image Stockbyte / Getty Images

You’ve learned how to invest in bonds. Going one step further, there are two primary ways to begin investing in municipal bonds. One way is to purchase individual municipal bonds directly and the second is to buy a mutual fund that invests in municipal bonds. I will outline the process for each below.

Individual municipal bonds can be bought through bond dealers, banks, brokerage firms and in a few cases directly from the municipality. Individual municipal bonds can either be bought on the primary market, which is for new issue bonds or on the secondary market, which is a market for trading bonds after the bond has already been issued.

Buying Municipal Bonds in the Primary Market

If an investor wants to buy a new issue municipal bond, the process for doing so is called the retail order period. Understand that getting involved at this level can be difficult and is often reserved for high net worth individuals. The retail order period typically lasts a couple of days and levels the playing field between retail customers and large institutions. If you purchase a bond in the primary market, there are no fees or markups for the purchase. A bank or group of banks will bring the bond issue to the market and you would be required to have an account with one of the banks leading the new issue or with one of the banks that are syndicating the offering. Additionally, you would be delivered an offering document or prospectus. The bonds are typically offered on a schedule, which highlights the different maturities and yields. You put in a request with the investment representative you are dealing with for your choice of bond coupon. maturity date and number of bonds. Ordinarily each bond has a value of $1,000.

Buying Municipal Bonds in the Secondary Market

Municipal bond funds offer professional management of a bond portfolio. When investing in a municipal bond fund. a manager or group of managers would select and buy bonds for the mutual fund. As an investor, you would simply buy shares in the municipal bond mutual fund through either a traditional or online brokerage firm or, directly from a mutual fund company. One of the advantages of bond mutual fund is that they offer an investor diversification with a smaller dollar amount. One of the disadvantages of a bond mutual fund is the additional level of expense from the fund management fee.